by Ralph Peters
The lights lowered yet again, deepening the shadows. Nellie bid the girl come back to her. We could not hear, but understood the message on her lips. The girl leaned forward, sinking into the spell. Nellie brought her face, her lips, to the girl’s ear. Auburn hair brushed the girl’s cheek, cascading down her neck and breast like blood.
I had a sense that Nellie was draining the girl. Not of her blood, God forgive me, but of her soul.
Miss Anthony’s pencil lay forgotten.
Nellie’s lips brushed the girl’s ear again, then glided down her neck and pulled away. She sat back like some legendary queen, her look triumphant.
No. Sated. She looked sated.
Kildare offered his arm to the girl and led her, shaking, toward the audience. Her face wore a lattice of tears. But she was smiling.
“Tell them,” he commanded, extending a hand toward the audience.
“It’s true,” the girl burst out. “It’s true. It’s all true.” Then she broke down, sobbing and smiling as I have only known women to do in the deepest privacy. One of the reverend gentlemen helped her from the stage. He treated her like a sacred relic.
The second girl’s interview ended wistfully, but with another confession that all had been accurately revealed. The third rose in a fit of joy, a child granted its wish. When her turn came, the flirt jumped up before her time was done, shouting, “I’ll never have the beast, not in a hundred lifetimes!”
There was strange. We all knew she was wrong.
“Miss Kildare’s a marvel,” Miss Anthony whispered.
The first of the fellows sat down and leaned toward Nellie, anxious for those lips to find his ear. But Nellie kept her distance from the gentlemen, and spoke aloud. The great hall was so quiet her voice reached the rafters. Twas a deeper voice than the one I had heard on the hill. Fit to marshal the spirit world. The doubting girl was gone, at least this night.
Some of the maidens mentioned by name were in the audience, and swoons were not infrequent. The last boy fled the stage, fearing exposure.
But all this was prologue. When the game of hearts was done, Kildare led Nellie forward. She seemed to float toward us. Then he began that gliding passage of the hands over her, ending again by circling her eyes in a long, slow rhythm.
I felt my own eyes fighting a drowse.
When Kildare was done, Nellie stood with her eyes closed, hands extended from her billowing sleeves. Welcoming an invisible guest.
“In return for their gracious assistance . . . in maintaining the Christian virtue of this hall,” Kildare announced, “our two reverend gentlemen may take the liberty of asking my daughter one question each. Any question, gentlemen . . .”
The first man, chiseled for a High Church parish, asked when the terrible war would end.
Her answer shocked, and might be marked the first failure of the evening. For it seemed unbelievable. With hardly a moment’s hesitation, she said:
“Full three years more must pass. Three years of blood and sorrow. Then hate dies in the spring.”
The hall broke into turmoil.
“But . . . but . . .” the minister stammered, “ . . . the Union will win, of course . . . the . . .”
“Only one question, sir,” Kildare said. “One question each. The strain is too great.”
As the clamor subsided, the other preacher stepped forward. With a smug look. He was shorter than his colleague, and had the stoutness of the Lutheran.
“When,” he asked in a mighty pulpit voice, “will our Savior return?”
The audience exclaimed at his boldness. But the man was undeterred. Even pleased at his effect, I thought.
“When will we again know the peaceable kingdom?” he continued. “When will the lion lie down with the lamb? When shall we look upon our Savior’s face?”
I watched the rise and fall of Nellie’s bosom. Expecting her to break down in a fit of coughing under the weight of such a test. But her disease seemed to have left her for the evening. In the course of the interviews, she had even gained a flush to vanquish her paleness.
“Never,” she said.
You may imagine the shock in that hall. But she continued, voice rising to pierce us. “Never . . . until the day He is welcome again. He is not wanted now. Men’s hearts are hard and cold . . . their hands hold fresh nails ready . . .”
“Blasphemy!” someone cried behind me. But the charge found little echo. Instead, the audience passed from its confusion into mourning. As if each man and woman knew the girl was right.
Kildare leapt to the rescue, face alarmed. He held up his hands for silence, calling out, “Gentlemen . . . ladies . . . please . . .”
When he had them broken to a murmur, he turned to Nellie a last time and called, “Princess of the Ancient Mysteries . . . these good souls beg a response to the first reverend gentleman’s unanswered question. What is to be the future of our beloved Union? Will it endure? What shall we see? What fate awaits this country?”
She lifted her face and said:
“Glory.”
I OFFERED TO ACCOMPANY Miss Anthony home, but she would have none of it.
“Women must learn to fend for themselves,” she said, get-upping her pony. The cart rolled into the fog.
Twas a relief, I will admit. For though I would behave as a gentleman ought, I hoped to intercept the Kildares as they departed. Dodging lamplit cabs, I hurried back toward the hall and met the last of the audience issuing from its doors. Slow they were, with somber faces. Clinging to the evening, or perhaps only to the false gaiety of the gaslamps. This was no night to pace through lonely rooms.
Hooks of conversation caught my ear.
“Nonsense, the war will be over by . . . Did you see the look on . . . They say she’s . . . Oh, where the blazes did I . . . If you were Jesus, would you . . . felt it hovering, I did . . . My, what a lovely . . . haven’t seen you in . . . I distinctly told . . . nothing but a diseased Irish slut . . .”
The last come from a woman’s voice. For men will wound, but women speak to kill.
Just as I approached, Kildare swept out, leading Nellie along. She wore a velvet traveling cloak, with a hood that shadowed her face. The rowdies on the fringe of the crowd hollered about the “ghost girl,” and damnation, but the respectable folk made way. You felt a mix of fear and yearning in them, an aching to reach out restrained by a peppery urge to run. A bit of it touched me. For we sensed we had approached a strange frontier, and the safety of what we knew checked the promise of that beyond. A coach waited. Kildare hustled the girl inside.
Neither gave a sign that they had seen me. There are blessings in a certain compactness of physique.
I thought that I had missed my chance—and had, regarding Nellie. But Kildare did not follow his daughter into the vehicle. He shut the door on her and tapped the driver’s bench with his walking stick.
The coach pulled off.
A covey of ladies approached Kildare, holding out autograph books. He signed a pair of them, then announced, “I am called, I am called,” in that actor-fellow’s voice of his. And off he swept, cape trailing.
Now, you will forgive me if I admit I longed to speak to Nellie. I had thought much about her, about her words and doings, and had my bit to say and more to ask. But I count it a good thing that her father packed her off, for it left me no choice but to do my duty. And my duty was to follow Kildare.
I had not inquired for him at the hotels, nor at the police offices. For I did not want him to learn I had come to Rochester. Perhaps the girl knew. I know not what she sensed and what she missed, whether the future was clear as a painted picture to her, or but a boiling up of this and that. But I did not believe she would tell Kildare if she saw me in her visions. For there was more to that situation than the two let on. But let that bide. For now.
I hastened after Kildare, pursuing him into the fog. Away from the lighted front of the hall, the air was thick as guncotton, and the lamps but will-o’-the-wisps, teasing a fellow on. I dared
not trail him too closely, and could not see much beyond the length of an arm. So I concentrated on his footsteps, the way we tracked the assassin to his lair in old Lahore. And I will tell you: Not a few British throats were cut in that distant darkness.
Kildare marched along with a purpose, fair slapping the pavement with his walking stick and careless of the ice. Twas hard to keep up with him. I could not use my cane, see. For it makes a wicked racket as I go, and sounds swell in the fog, and he would know it was more than the tapping of a gentleman’s stick. So I scurried along, bad leg a bother. Yet, I would not make too much of the discomfort, for I was grateful to have the leg at all. Bull Run had almost won it of me.
We walked a quarter mile, I judge, down streets tucked up and others roiling sin. Where saloons sent out their lighted invitations, I had to slow and let him stretch his lead. Then the sad women called to me, for they imagined—hoped—I had slackened my pace for them.
Now, I would have none of them, as you would not, yet I will not judge the Magdalenes too harshly. For their Hell is here and now, and I had seen more than I wished of their lot in the Fowler case. Only think on it. To stand abroad on an icy night, counting on the Providence you have rejected to guide half a dollar to your bed, is to be damned before you shed your mortal husk. Tis fine to look out from your carriage, with your husband by your side and furs to warm you, madame. But it is a harder thing to look upon that carriage from without. And, if you will pardon me the honesty, not all husbands keep to their carriages when their wives are not by. The heart and flesh meander, and good fortune is not always born of justice.
The girls shivered in their cast-off gowns, while drunken hands played “Camptown Races” loud. Now I am a sufficient man, but know I am not grand or nobly handsome. So I must leave a bit of sympathy even with the wicked when a girl is disappointed by my passing.
I feared that I had lost Kildare’s track. After the light of the bars and bawdiness, the fog seemed heavier still. More lost voices called their invitations. Perhaps they marked the queerness of my gait, and thought that I was drunk and fallen, too. Then, in the heavy dark, the voices changed to those of children.
There is sorrow.
I caught Kildare’s footsteps again. Distinct and bold they were. Like the slap of his cane. He began to whistle. Shameless.
I shuddered at our surroundings. For I am an old bayonet and know full well the wantonness of men, but do not like to think upon such things as the purchase of a child. My heart hardens at those who would take such advantage. Christian charity deserts me.
“Lo, Kilraine!” a voice called. English as a fox chase.
And yes. He said, “Kilraine,” and not “Kildare.”
Kildare’s footsteps ceased. As did the whistling.
“You’re late,” the Englishman accused. “And I’m bored. However can one amuse oneself in this . . . village? It’s duller than Scotland.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Kildare said. Oh, twas his voice, and no mistaking. But stripped of pride and power of a sudden. “The performance . . . the first speaker rambled on . . .”
“All right, Kilraine. Done is done. Walk with me, old man. Tell me where we stand.”
In that fog, all character was sound. Although I dared not follow closely enough to hear their speech—they lowered their voices as they got on to their business—the contrast of their footfalls and the tapping of their sticks told who was who. Kildare adjusted his pace to his companion, and his cane went out of rhythm. The other fellow strolled, easy as if promenading on Pall Mall, stick touching down lightly. The English gentleman has a way of capturing the world’s attention by ignoring it.
I come along behind, trying to be quiet. With my rough stick unused, though it was wanted.
They walked and talked for a fair half hour, the Englishman’s voice pitched high but imperious, while Kildare—Kilraine—remained subservient in tone, a debtor who has been told his loan cannot be extended. I ached to hear their words, but feared discovery.
Still, I had gained much. Kilraine. Oh, yes, I recalled the name from Mick Tyrone’s letter. And isn’t the world small for the wicked? But what on earth did the fellow have to do with a high English gentleman who fussed about in alleys where children were bartered? What should he have to do with an Englishman at all, him Irish and mixed up with rumors of Fenian risings, and murder, and mysteries?
One mystery more, that was.
We slipped back into a well-lit world. I recognized a street of better shops and fine hotels. Dull with the cold, a policeman shuffled between the gaslamps.
I yearned to rush forward and have a good look at the Englishman. But more light demanded more distance between us. Still, I saw his outline, slender even dressed for winter and as rigid in his posture as he was rumpled in his associations. I knew the type. They went to schools where there was time for sport, then made each other’s sisters unhappy in marriage. The very best of Britannia’s officers come of that stock, and the very worst.
They turned into the Waverly Hotel, Rochester’s grandest. And that was a blessing, for I was able to watch them through a window as they talked amid plush and palms.
Graceful as a captain at a regimental ball, the Englishman turned toward me.
I knew that face. I could not put a name to it, and held it not in personal account. But I knew the man. Perhaps through the illustrated papers or the like.
He was pale, though not like Nellie. His complexion spoke of wealth and not of illness. A mustache grassed below a pointed nose. Slim and fair-haired, he was not handsome, but looked as though he expected the world to think him so. He slipped off his coat—twas fashioned with a quarter cape over the shoulders—and his finery set him off from every other fellow in that lobby. When a stout guest bumped him and erupted with apologies, the Englishman merely glanced down as he might at an errant dog.
Oh, the English. They disdain the world until it submits. It is their genius.
He gave Kildare a tap on the chest with the noggin of his stick, then smiled and turned away. As he strolled toward the staircase, the staff cleared a path for him, bobbing up and down like Chinamen.
Kildare stood in a slump. He wore the look of a man who had been taken where he did not want to go, then abandoned.
Snapping into motion, he fled. Trailing fear like a stink. He burst out of the doors before I could get well away, but still he failed to spot me. For all his yapping about visions, he seemed to see nothing at all now. He rushed into the fog and disappeared.
I let him go this time. For I had other matters to attend.
Inside the hotel I went, licensed by my uniform. I gave myself marching orders, since I had to overcome a certain reluctance to take the first step. I was entering upon a matter painful to me, see. Good money might be lost.
The Englishman was up the steps and gone. I picked out the steward who most resembled a quartermaster’s sergeant.
“Look you,” I said. “A fellow dressed up to the nines dropped this outside.” I opened my palm to reveal a five-dollar gold piece. “An English fellow, see.”
The steward reached for the money. “I’ll give it to him.”
I shut my palm. “I would know the man I’m doing proper. Does he have a name, then?”
The fellow looked me over. At first his face was pinched and cold, for he knew I was not a guest of the hotel. And his livery was finer than my uniform. Then he glanced about the lobby. Seeing the other guests were not attentive, he put on a street-corner face and said, “Whatever you’re up to, it won’t work, Jacko. That soldier get-up of yours won’t fool nobody, let alone the likes of him. He’s wise to all the tricks, the bastard. That’s the Earl of Thretford, the richest man in England, and he don’t need no five bucks.” The steward held out his hand. “But I’ll take it for not putting the coppers onto you.”
He had the eye of one born to small triumphs.
I gave the fellow the gold piece without a fuss. For I was stunned like a recruit surrounded in his first engage
ment.
I shuttled off, leaning upon my cane again. The fog outside seemed welcoming, for my thoughts were dark and unclear.
The Earl of Thretford was not the richest man in England. He was, though, one of the richest, and among the most famous. At a time when the aristocracy despised industry and trade, his father had made investments scorned by his peers. The matter was a scandal in my youth. Now the son owned half of Manchester, a quarter of Sheffield, and at least an eighth of Glasgow. He even had holdings in sad Merthyr, where my father was broken and the Reverend Mr. Griffiths took me in. Arthur Langley, Earl of Thretford, was a great figure in politics, as well, an associate of Palmerston and Russell, and a favored shooting companion of Prince Albert, until that gentleman’s tragic demise. To find such a fellow in Rochester, New York, consorting with the likes of Kildare or Kilraine or name him as you will . . .
I had so much to think on that I forgot to regret the gold piece.
THIRTEEN
“WELL, I HAVE BEEN A FOOL,” I SAID TO SHERIFF UNDERWOOD. “And not for the first time, John.”
His mighty ears sagged. “Guess that makes two of us, Abel.” Consoling himself with a sip of jail-house coffee, he confided, “Never thought this darned job would be so much trouble. Of course, it’s different for you, being a detective and all.”
Detective?
I put down my tin cup. The jailer had not lost his job over the murder fuss and his scold of a wife retained charge of the cookery. Her coffee was a monstrous, cruel thing, and I pitied the prisoners. But the sheriff had shone a queer light on my doings, and my thoughts turned to myself.
Detective?
My mouth must have hung wide. For I had not considered matters in such a light. I was a military officer, doing my country’s duty, and, temporarily, a confidential agent. Detectives were characters in the lowest of the weeklies, intemperate of garment, with little black cigars stuffed in their mouths. The wicked pursuing the wickeder. Had I not been a middle-aged man of thirty-three, I might have thrashed the fellow who called me such.
